Zarya (spacecraft)

For the ISS module, see Zarya.

Zarya (spacecraft)

General information
Country of origin	Soviet Union
Applications	Carry passengers and supplies to low Earth orbit and back
Orbit regimes	Low Earth orbit
Operator	Soviet space program
Derived from	Soyuz
Production
Status	Canceled, 1989
Launched	None

The Zarya spacecraft was a secret Soviet project of the late 1980s aiming to design and build a large, manned, vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) reusable space capsule, a much larger replacement for the Soyuz spacecraft. The project was shelved in 1989, "on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse."

After the project was shelved in January 1989, for financial reasons, the name was reused for Zarya, the first of the components of the International Space Station.

Design

The Zarya spacecraft was designed around a bell shaped re-entry section or Descent Module like the Soyuz spacecraft but it did not have a spherical orbital module.^{[citation needed]} It had a smaller service module, also known as an instrumentation and propulsion module.^{[citation needed]}

The Zarya spacecraft would have differed from all previous spacecraft by having an array of a dozen^{[citation needed]} rockets for making a soft landing upon return to Earth, without using a parachute. This would have been much like the McDonnell Douglas DC-X prototype.^{[citation needed]}

Mission

The Zarya spacecraft would have brought crew and supplies to Mir, or supplies only in automated mode if need be, and it would also have been a general purpose workhorse for assembling or fixing other spacecraft in orbit.^{[citation needed]}

It would have had a normal crew of two to four, and offered the possibility of carrying a maximum of twelve if used as a Mir lifeboat.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• McDonnell Douglas DC-X
• Reusable Vehicle Testing
• Quad (rocket)
• Blue Origin New Shepard
• Kankoh-maru

References

Zarya http://www.astronautix.com/craft/zarya.htm